Burns all in for football

Thursday

MANHATTAN — There was not one defining moment last year that made Tyler Burns step away from football.

But suffice it to say that two years into his Kansas State career, the freedom and joy he felt growing up with the game was no longer there.

"I felt like I was coming here and just clocking in and clocking out and I wasn't really being myself when I was here, and just because in college it's a lot more of a job," said Burns, who a year after leaving the K-State team returned in the spring ready to give it another go. "It's a job for these coaches, everyone around here, so I just felt like I was dealing with all the anxiety before practice and throughout the week and I felt depressed at times, and I didn't want to be selling myself to football, if that makes sense."

The answer, he decided, was to take a break and also take stock of his life.

"I know I'm not defined by football, that I'm defined by Jesus Christ," said Burns, a 6-foot, 220-pound running back from Wichita's Trinity Academy, who came to K-State on scholarship in 2016. "Like that's very important to me. So I just wanted to make sure that's where my identity (lay) and not being just football."

What he learned while he was away was that maybe he could have both. So with new head coach Chris Klieman's blessing, he rejoined the team as a walk-on in the spring, secured a spot on several special teams, and by last week's season opener was back on scholarship.

Not only that, but with the Wildcats well on their way to a 49-14 blowout victory over Nicholls, he got his first real career opportunity at running back. On a 10-play drive, he got the ball nine times, rushing for 60 yards and capping it with a 1-yard touchdown.

"It was very rewarding," said Burns, who finished with 64 yards on 10 carries, more than tripling his career rushing total. "I've never had really a free opportunity like that just to go and run the ball and play.

"I've mostly just been on special teams, which I enjoy, and any way I can help serve the team. But that was the first time I felt like, since high school, that I could get the ball and just like, 'Hey, let's go run and let's have fun.' "

Klieman said when he and Burns discussed a return to the team this year, there were no guarantees.

"I know he wanted to visit with me in the spring about having an opportunity and I told him that's what he'd get, was an opportunity to come back to the football team," Klieman said. "I didn't promise him playing time, I didn't promise him an opportunity to get aid, anything.

"Where Tyler's made a difference for me is on special teams, more so than running back. We put him on a number of special teams and he showed the ability, and more than that the want-to, to be part of them, and sometimes that's hard."

Burns, who during his absence from the team earned a degree in social sciences, was quick to point out that the decision to leave after his 2017 redshirt freshman season had nothing to do with his teammates, the previous staff or head coach Bill Snyder.

"Life isn't all about being happy, but that was part of it," he said. "I was struggling a lot mentally, but it wasn't like some huge fight.

"I like Bill Snyder and me and him get along well, and I liked the coaches around me. I was just struggling with the culture of football and coming in and grinding for five, six, whatever hours."

Even in deciding to return, Burns was a bit ambivalent.

"Sometimes I didn't miss it at all," he said. "Just from the constant grind. A lot of guys understand how hard it is, that are here.

"But yeah, there was definitely times I missed it. Mostly just the guys. I love the guys."

Burns, whose older brother Morgan was an All-America kick returner for the Wildcats in 2015, said his initial meeting with Klieman helped put him at ease.

"I just felt like he's genuine," Burns said. "I think he's down to earth. He wasn't just saying things I wanted to hear."

Burns went back to work, hoping to regain his old scholarship. Had he not, who knows if he would have stuck around.

"I'd probably be at Chick-fil-A," he said with a smile. "Honestly, there were points throughout camp that I thought I'm not going to get it. There were times I felt encouraged (and) I felt discouraged, if I had a good practice or a bad practice.

"I honestly had no idea and I just tried to put my head down and grind."

But now that he's back, he's all in.

"I've got to be if I'm this far in," he said. "It's still sometimes a process to work through feelings like anxiety, but that's every player here.

"Because there's a lot of pressure on us every day, trying to come here and just fully be myself and be joyful of how God has blessed me throughout this."

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